Recent decades have seen numerous developments in high-fidelity sound reproduction. Electronic and mechanical components made available to amplifier manufacturers have permitted the design of amplifiers that have better linearity and frequency response and lower distortion. Such amplifiers are smaller in size, less fragile, and less expensive. The audio sources (e.g. multiplexed stereo FM, digital compact disk, and compact cassette tape) are greatly improved over those previously available, and are dropping in cost. The electrical signals provided to the terminals of the speakers of a stereo sound system are, in present-day times and at modest cost, of a quality and fidelity that would have been unavailable to the consumer of two decades ago, except at prohibitive cost.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate, however, that one aspect of a high-fidelity sound system has remained stubbornly resistant to these improvements, namely the technology whereby the electrical energy of a sound system is converted to accoustic (airborne) energy: the speakers.
FIG. 1 shows the impedance of a electromagnetic speaker driver. It consists of three components: R.sub.e is the voice coil dc resistance, L.sub.v is the voice coil inductance, and the parallel network of L.sub.m, C.sub.m and R.sub.m is the motor impedance. The inclusion of L.sub.m, C.sub.m and R.sub.m is a result of the energy conversion process between electric energy and mechanical energy in the electromagnetic speaker driver. To be more specific, the mass of the diaphragm causes C.sub.m to appear in the driver's impedance, the friction for R.sub.m, and the compliance of the diaphragm assembly for L.sub.m. There are known formulae to relate the values of C.sub.m, R.sub.m and L.sub.m to the mechanical parameters of the driver. If one puts a driver in a box, the measured impedance changes. There will be a network, which is related to the mechanical parameters of the box, appeared in parallel with the motor impedance. FIG. 2 show the added networks for closed-enclosure and bass-reflexive types of boxes.
The analysis of the frequency response in these systems under a voltage-source input signal can be done as in FIG. 3. Z.sub.b is the added impedance component from the speaker box. In the bass frequency region, the importance of L.sub.v is very minor and hence omitted in FIG. 3. There is an equivalent mechanical system for the electrical system described in FIG. 3b. Alternatively, the analysis can be done on the mechanical system and result will be the same. Note that the dc resistance of the voice coil acts as part of the mechanical friction in the driver as seen from FIG. 3b.
In general, the bass response of a electromagnetic (boxed) speaker system (that is, the system including a electromagnetic driver (or drivers) and an enclosure in which the driver(s) resides) depends on the mechanical parameters of both the enclosure and the driver itself, as well as the voice coil dc resistance. Examples of the parameters for enclosure are the box volume and port resonance frequency (if the enclosure is ported or vented). Examples of the driver parameters are compliance, mass, and the friction of the diaphragm assembly. These parameters have to be carefully chosen so that the combined system provides good bass response. Very often the design procedure starts with some known parameters in the driver or the enclosure, then calculates the required values for the rest parameters. There are at least two implications here.
First, when one parameter (say enclosure volume) is altered during the design procedure, the drivers need to be redesigned so that they exhibit the new set of required parameters. Second, after one fixes some parameters and then calculates the required values for other parameters, these values may becomes unrealistic to implement mechanically, or the efficiency of the speaker system becomes unacceptable.
Several apparatus have been proposed to address the above-mentioned problem. The first type of apparatus uses a derived signal, which is related to the movement of the diaphragm in the driver, as feedback signal so that the velocity of the diaphragm will exhibit desired characteristics in the frequency domain. For instance, in a closed-enclosure system, the velocity of the diaphragm needs to be inversely proportional to frequency (in the piston frequency region) in order to provide truly flat frequency response. Such a requirement (for the diaphragm velocity) is independent of any mechanical parameters. Therefore, the frequency response of the speaker system does not depend on the mechanical parameters of the enclosure or the driver. The major disadvantage of this type of apparatus is that it is only feasible when the desired velocity is a simple function of the frequency. The closed-enclosure speaker system can be one example. On the other hand, to produce flat frequency response in a bass-reflexive speaker system, the velocity is a complex function of frequency and the mechanical parameters of the enclosure and the driver. This type of apparatus becomes impractical for a bass-reflexive system (or any other ported or vented box system).
The second type of apparatus, in which the output impedance is a combination of a negative resistance and a complex reactance, tries to change the "apparent" mechanical parameters such that they are different from the actual mechanical parameters. In essence, such apparatus provides a mechanism that "changes the mechanical parameters of the drivers electrically". The objective of the negative output resistance is to cancel the dc resistance in the voice coil so that the other part of the output impedance (the complex reactance) can interact directly with the motor impedance and its equivalent effects are the changes of mechanical parameters. One example of these type of apparatus that portrayed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,118,600. That approach can be applied to various type of speaker systems, ranging from closed-enclosure to bass-reflexive systems. However, a major problem with that approach is that the dc resistance in the voice coil is highly dependent on the temperature and hence the result of cancellation is not guaranteed in practice. For instance, copper, which is the most commonly used material for voice coils, has a temperature coefficient about 0.2%/.degree. F. In the bass frequency region, the signals sustain longer than those in the other frequency region. Combined with the fact that the hearing threshold of human ears in bass frequency region is typically quite high, there will be a significantly higher amount of electric energy dissipated in the voice coils. The result is that the frequency response depends on the voice coil temperature, and hence is not stable. A major problem with the system proposed therein is the negative output resistance. As will discussed below, the system according to the invention avoids this problem.
An approach to the temperature-shift problem is suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 4,980,920. The patent suggests a temperature compensation circuit to address this problem, but the result is hardly satisfactory in practice as issues such as thermo-coupling between the voice coil and the temperature sensor, and the linearity of sensor outputs, challenge the long-term stability of such a system.